Editing Agatha Christie (section)

==== Formula and plot devices ====

Early in her career, a reporter noted that "her plots are possible, logical, and always new".<ref name=":6"/> According to Hannah, "At the start of each novel, she shows us an apparently impossible situation and we go mad wondering 'How can this be happening?'. Then, slowly, she reveals how the impossible is not only possible but the only thing that could have happened."<ref name=":7"/>

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| caption1          = [[Abney Hall]], Cheshire, the inspiration for Christie novel settings such as Chimneys and Stonygates
| caption2          = Christie used inspiration from her stay at the [[Old Cataract Hotel]] on the banks of the [[River Nile]] in [[Aswan]], Egypt, for her 1937 novel ''[[Death on the Nile]]''.
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Christie developed her storytelling techniques during what has been called the [[Golden Age of Detective Fiction|"Golden Age"]] of detective fiction.<ref name=":20"/> Author Dilys Winn called Christie "the doyenne of Coziness", a sub-genre which "featured a small village setting, a hero with faintly aristocratic family connections, a plethora of red herrings and a tendency to commit homicide with sterling silver letter openers and poisons imported from Paraguay".<ref>{{cite book |last=Winn |first=Dilys |title=Murder Ink: The Mystery Reader's Companion |publisher=[[Workman Publishing]] |year=1977 |location=New York |page=3}}</ref> At the end, in a Christie hallmark, the detective usually gathers the surviving suspects into one room, explains the course of their deductive reasoning, and reveals the guilty party; but there are exceptions where it is left to the guilty party to explain all (such as ''[[And Then There Were None]]'' and [[Endless Night (novel)|''Endless Night'']]).<ref name="me">{{cite journal |last=Mezel |first=Kathy |s2cid=162411534 |date=2007 |title=Spinsters, Surveillance, and Speech: The Case of Miss Marple, Miss Mole, and Miss Jekyll |journal=[[The Journal of Modern Literature]] |volume=30 |issue=2 |pages=103–20 |doi=10.2979/JML.2007.30.2.103 |jstor=4619330| issn = 0022-281X }}</ref><ref name="be">{{cite journal |last=Beehler |first=Sharon A. |date=1998 |title=Close vs. Closed Reading: Interpreting the Clues |journal=[[The English Journal]] |volume=77 |issue=6 |pages=39–43 |doi=10.2307/818612 |jstor=818612}}</ref>

Christie did not limit herself to quaint English villages{{snd}}the action might take place on a small island (''And Then There Were None''), an aeroplane (''[[Death in the Clouds]]''), a train (''Murder on the Orient Express''), a steamship (''[[Death on the Nile]]''), a smart London flat (''[[Cards on the Table]]''), a resort in the West Indies (''[[A Caribbean Mystery]]''), or an archaeological dig (''[[Murder in Mesopotamia]]''){{snd}}but the circle of potential suspects is usually closed and intimate: family members, friends, servants, business associates, fellow travellers.<ref name=":8"/>{{Rp|37}} Stereotyped characters abound (the {{Lang|fr|[[femme fatale]]}}, the stolid policeman, the devoted servant, the dull colonel), but these may be subverted to stymie the reader; impersonations and secret alliances are always possible.<ref name=":8">{{cite book |last=Curran |first=John |title=Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks: Fifty Years of Mysteries in the Making |publisher=[[HarperCollins]] |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-06-200652-3 |location=London}}</ref>{{Rp|58}} There is always a motive{{snd}}most often, money: "There are very few killers in Christie who enjoy murder for its own sake."<ref name="thompson"/>{{Rp|379, 396}}

Professor of Pharmacology Michael C. Gerald noted that "in over half her novels, one or more victims are poisoned, albeit not always to the full satisfaction of the perpetrator."<ref name=":11">{{cite book |last=Gerald |first=Michael C. |title=The Poisonous Pen of Agatha Christie |publisher=[[University of Texas Press]] |year=1993 |isbn=0-292-76535-5 |location=Austin, Texas}}</ref>{{Rp|viii}} Guns, knives, garrottes,<!-- "garrottes" has a double t in BrEng --> tripwires, blunt instruments, and even a hatchet were also used, but "Christie never resorted to elaborate mechanical or scientific means to explain her ingenuity,"<ref name=":12">{{cite book |last=Curran |first=John |title=Agatha Christie: Murder in the Making |publisher=[[HarperCollins]] |year=2011 |isbn=978-0062065445 |location=London}}</ref>{{Rp|57}} according to [[Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks|John Curran]], author and literary adviser to the Christie estate.<ref>{{cite web |date=2020 |title=John Curran author |url=https://www.harpercollins.com/author/cr-105484/john-curran/ |access-date=11 April 2020 |website=[[HarperCollins]]Publishers |archive-date=11 April 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200411084002/https://www.harpercollins.com/author/cr-105484/john-curran/ |url-status=live}}</ref> Many of her clues are mundane objects: a calendar, a coffee cup, wax flowers, a beer bottle, a fireplace used during a heat wave.<ref name=":8"/>{{Rp|38}}

According to crime writer [[P. D. James]], Christie was prone to making the unlikeliest character the guilty party. Alert readers could sometimes identify the culprit by identifying the least likely suspect.<ref name=":9">{{cite book |last=James |first=P.D. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fcGke2wlt0UC&pg=PT26 |title=Talking About Detective Fiction |publisher=[[Random House]] |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-307-39882-6 |access-date=4 April 2016 |archive-date=19 November 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161119174118/https://books.google.com/books?id=fcGke2wlt0UC&pg=PT26 |url-status=live}}</ref> Christie mocked this insight in her foreword to ''Cards on the Table'': "Spot the person least likely to have committed the crime and in nine times out of ten your task is finished. Since I do not want my faithful readers to fling away this book in disgust, I prefer to warn them beforehand ''that this is not that kind of book''."<ref name=":10">{{cite book |last=Gillian |first=Gill |title=Agatha Christie: The Woman and Her Mysteries |publisher=[[Free Press (publisher)|The Free Press]] |year=1990 |isbn=002911702X |location=New York City}}</ref>{{Rp|135–36}}

On BBC Radio 4's ''[[Desert Island Discs]]'' in 2007, [[Brian Aldiss]] said Christie had told him she wrote her books up to the last chapter, then decided who the most unlikely suspect was, after which she would go back and make the necessary changes to "frame" that person.<ref name="Brian Aldiss claims Agatha tells method">{{cite web |last=Aldiss |first=Brian|author-link=Brian Aldiss |title=BBC Radio 4 – Factual – Desert Island Discs |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/desertislanddiscs_20070128.shtml |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090211235326/http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/desertislanddiscs_20070128.shtml |archive-date=11 February 2009 |access-date=22 February 2009 |work=[[BBC]]}}</ref> Based upon a study of her working notebooks, Curran describes how Christie would first create a cast of characters, choose a setting, and then produce a list of scenes in which specific clues would be revealed; the order of scenes would be revised as she developed her plot. Of necessity, the murderer had to be known to the author before the sequence could be finalised and she began to type or dictate the first draft of her novel.<ref name=":8"/> Much of the work, particularly dialogue, was done in her head before she put it on paper.<ref name="Auto1993"/>{{Rp|241–45}}<ref name=":10"/>{{Rp|33}}

In 2013, the 600 members of the [[Crime Writers' Association]] chose ''[[The Murder of Roger Ackroyd]]'' as "the best [[whodunit]]{{nbsp}}... ever written".<ref name=":18">{{cite news |last=Brown |first=Jonathan |date=5 November 2013 |title=Agatha Christie's ''The Murder of Roger Ackroyd'' voted best crime novel ever |work=[[The Independent]] |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/agatha-christies-the-murder-of-roger-ackroyd-voted-best-crime-novel-ever-8923395.html |access-date=19 February 2014 |archive-date=4 November 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191104035244/https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/agatha-christies-the-murder-of-roger-ackroyd-voted-best-crime-novel-ever-8923395.html |url-status=live}}</ref> Author [[Julian Symons]] observed, "In an obvious sense, the book fits within the conventions{{nbsp}}... The setting is a village deep within the English countryside, Roger Ackroyd dies in his study; there is a butler who behaves suspiciously{{nbsp}}... Every successful detective story in this period involved a deceit practised upon the reader, and here the trick is the highly original one of making the murderer the local doctor, who tells the story and acts as Poirot's Watson."<ref name=":20">{{cite book |last=Symons |first=Julian|author-link=Julian Symons |title=Mortal Consequences: A History from the Detective Story to the Crime Novel |publisher=[[Harper (publisher)|Harper & Row, Publishers]] |year=1972 |location=New York City}}</ref>{{Rp|106–07}} Critic Sutherland Scott stated, "If Agatha Christie had made no other contribution to the literature of detective fiction she would still deserve our grateful thanks" for writing this novel.<ref>{{cite book |last=Scott |first=Sutherland |title=Blood in Their Ink |publisher=[[Stanley Paul]] |year=1953 |location=London |quote=Cited in Fitzgibbon (1980). p. 19.}}</ref>

In September 2015, to mark her 125th birthday, ''And Then There Were None'' was named the "World's Favourite Christie" in a vote sponsored by the author's estate.<ref name=":15">{{cite web |last=Flood |first=Alison |date=2 September 2015 |title=And Then There Were None declared world's favourite Agatha Christie novel |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/01/and-then-there-were-none-declared-worlds-favourite-agatha-christie-novel |website=[[The Guardian]] |access-date=16 May 2017 |archive-date=30 July 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170730203411/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/01/and-then-there-were-none-declared-worlds-favourite-agatha-christie-novel |url-status=live}}</ref> The novel is emblematic of both her use of formula and her willingness to discard it. "''And Then There Were None'' carries the 'closed society' type of murder mystery to extreme lengths," according to author Charles Osborne.<ref name=":16"/>{{Rp|170}} It begins with the classic set-up of potential victim(s) and killer(s) isolated from the outside world, but then violates conventions. There is no detective involved in the action, no interviews of suspects, no careful search for clues, and no suspects gathered together in the last chapter to be confronted with the solution. As Christie herself said, "Ten people had to die without it becoming ridiculous or the murderer being obvious."<ref name="Auto1993"/>{{Rp|457}} Critics agreed she had succeeded: "The arrogant Mrs. Christie this time set herself a fearsome test of her own ingenuity{{nbsp}}... the reviews, not surprisingly, were without exception wildly adulatory."<ref name=":16"/>{{Rp|170–71}}